<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Life's no fun without a good scare by SomewhereApart</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27325927">Life's no fun without a good scare</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhereApart/pseuds/SomewhereApart'>SomewhereApart</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Breaking In [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Breaking In verse, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Halloween, maybe some sexy stuff forthcoming if I can find the time, tw: mild implications of disordered eating</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:29:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,719</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27325927</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhereApart/pseuds/SomewhereApart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin and Regina and their boys hanging out post trick-or-treating. BIn-verse.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Robin Hood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Breaking In [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/920265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Life's no fun without a good scare</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’m pretty sure this is a Christmas movie, not a Halloween movie,” Regina declares from her spot on Robin’s sofa, the discards from the boys’ candy bags untouched in a bowl on her lap.</p><p>She’s dressed as a cat—or rather, wearing black leggings and tight black turtleneck, eyeliner darkening the tip of her nose and swiping whiskers onto her cheeks (she’d scratched a smear through one about an hour ago, but hasn’t noticed yet and he hasn’t bothered to tell her). Her eyes are all done up, a smokey winged cat-eye that’s far more dramatic than her usual, and her lips are a dark purple color he’s never seen her wear before. She’d tugged her fuzzy-eared headband off and tossed it on the coffee table almost as soon as they’d arrived home from trick-or-treating, griping something about how it was too tight.</p><p>He thinks she looks adorable—but what’s new?</p><p>Still, he can’t resist telling her, “It’s full of skeletons and spooky presents and monsters made up of bugs. Sounds like Halloween to me, babe.”</p><p>“Yes, but they’re all preparing for <em>Christmas</em>; Halloween is over when the movie starts.”</p><p>“I think it’s spooky,” Henry pipes up from his spot on the floor, diligently sorting through his own candy bucket and instructing Roland in the finer points of which sweets are worth keeping and which aren’t. He’s shed his Gryffindor scarf and pushed his round glasses up to the top of his head, but he and Roland are still wearing their cloaks. (Roland had been a Hobbit, something Robin is dead certain the boy’s never seen in his life, but he’d loved flapping his cloak around all night nonetheless.)</p><p>Tuck is sitting nearby watching them with interest, but Robin is confident that the boys will keep him away from the chocolate.</p><p>Regina rolls her eyes and mutters a quiet, “Of course you do,” plucking a Milky Way Midnight from her bowl and fiddling with the wrapper. It doesn’t escape Robin’s notice that she does not, in fact, unwrap it.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s spooky,” Roland agrees solemnly, despite never having seen this film before either.</p><p>Regina goes into Mommy mode immediately, frowning slightly and asking, “Not <em>too</em> spooky, right? We could switch to something less—”</p><p>“Mom, it’s not <em>scary</em>,” Henry insists. “Just spooky.”</p><p>“Yeah, just spooky,” Roland nods resolutely, pulling a pack of Sixlets from his bowl and asking Henry, “What’re these?”</p><p>“Not very good,” Henry declares with a wrinkle of his nose and Roland scoots over to drop it into the bowl on Regina’s lap before returning to his haul.</p><p>Robin plops down onto the sofa beside her with a beer for each of them, handing hers over as he tells her, “Face it; you’re outnumbered.”</p><p>“As usual with you boys,” she mutters, but from this close he can see the corner of her mouth quirk up ever so slightly. She’s not as put-out as she’s pretending to be.</p><p>“Oh, hardly,” Robin denies, but she’s shaking her head and cutting him off before he can protest any further.</p><p>“Oh, <em>definitely</em>,” she corrects, watching the boys (Roland is so absorbed in his candy, it wouldn’t matter if the movie <em>was</em> too spooky; Henry keeps glancing between the TV and his ever-growing hoard of Reese’s pumpkins) as she continues, “Henry agrees with anything <em>you</em> say, and Roland agrees with anything <em>Henry</em> says.”</p><p>“Well, maybe you ought to agree with me, then, and we’d all be on the same page,” he teases, bumping his shoulder teasingly against hers. It makes her scoff out a laugh, a smile brightening her face and warming his heart simultaneously. Smiles have been harder and harder to come by these days; he counts each one as a tiny victory.</p><p>“I’ll agree with you when you’re right,” she counters. “I will not agree with you about <em>this</em>.”</p><p>“Well, the trick-or-treating is finished,” Robin points out. “So it seems the <em>perfect</em> movie to end the Halloween season and begin the Christmas one.”</p><p>Regina narrows her eyes at him, thinking—he’s got her with that one. Logicked her right into his corner, he’s sure of it.</p><p>“You know there’s a holiday between those two, right?” she deadpans, and now <em>Robin</em> is the one rolling his eyes.</p><p>“Now you’re just being contrary,” he argues, and he <em>knows</em> he’s got her when she only smirks and lifts the beer to her lips for a sip.</p><p>Robin mirrors her, sufficiently smug but deciding not to push his luck by rubbing her nose in it. Instead, he stretches an arm around her shoulders and urges her against his side, waiting through the knee-jerk hesitation borne from weeks of having to hide what they are to each other. She sighs softly as the tension melts out of her, her head finding a comfortable spot on his shoulder as Lock, Shock and Barrel set off again in search of the <em>right</em> Sandy Claws.</p><p>“Wait—don’t eat that!” Henry blurts from a few feet away, catching Robin’s attention. He tenses, ready to swoop in and wrestle a mini Hershey bar from Tuck’s jaws, but the dog is still plopped a foot away from the boys, ears perked up at Henry’s outburst but mouth thankfully empty. Henry is looking at <em>Roland</em> as he insists, “Not yet.”</p><p>“Why not?” Roland asks, a bite size Snickers already half unwrapped in his little hands.</p><p>“Because we only get to eat three pieces tonight, and you want to make sure you get the <em>best</em> ones. So no eating until you finish sorting.”</p><p>As Roland frowns and relents with, “Oh… ‘kay,” Robin tilts his head down at Regina.</p><p>“Only <em>three</em> pieces on Halloween?” he questions. “Bit of a killjoy, don’t you think?”</p><p>Regina’s brows rise, her tone knowing and certain as she asks, “Do <em>you</em> want to chase around kids on a sugar high after walking around the neighborhood for an hour?”</p><p>Robin opens his mouth to reply, then snaps it shut, because no, actually, he <em>doesn’t</em> want to do that. This is the first year Roland’s really been old enough to <em>appreciate</em> Halloween—he and Marian had eaten most of the candy last year (and likely will this year, too, considering the haul they’d made off with tonight).</p><p>“That’s what I thought,” she smirks, sipping her beer again before leaning forward to set it on the coffee table. As she leans back, Roland stretches over to give her a couple of Tootsie Rolls that have been deemed not worth keeping. She holds the bowl out for ease of deposit, then brings it back into her lap. Robin reaches in immediately and snags one of the chocolatey sweets, unwrapping it and popping it into his mouth.</p><p>It’s predictably disappointing but somehow festive all the same. “These bloody things taste like wax.”</p><p>“I bring them into work,” she tells him, fiddling absently with that Milky Way Midnight again.</p><p>“So the Mom Pile doesn’t even get eaten by Mom?”</p><p>“Some of it,” she shrugs. “I get all the dark chocolate; I already ate the one Reese’s pumpkin I get as the Mom Tax. I’ll pick my way through the Almond Joys over the next few weeks. But if I don’t love them they’re a waste of cal—” She stops herself, but it’s too late. They both already know where that conversation was going. Robin doesn’t touch it; he’ll let her move on or call herself out, but he doesn’t want to draw attention to it himself in front of the boys.</p><p>Regina swallows, drops that Milky Way and finishes, “If I don’t love them, why bother? I’m better off stealing the good stuff from Henry.”</p><p>“Hey!” Henry scowls up at her. “I’m counting all the Reese’s this year; I’ll know if you steal.”</p><p>Regina winces through a smile, caught out and admitting, “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”</p><p>“I <em>knew</em> I had more pumpkins last year,” he mutters, turning back to his candy, and Regina tells him that she did <em>not</em> steal his Reese’s pumpkins, <em>thank you very much</em>—just the mini cups—prompting Henry to grumble that she should just buy her own bag.</p><p>Robin watches the way she eyes her son, one brow rising skeptically, lips pursing slightly, no doubt debating whether to call him out on his cheek. He expects she will, and is proven wrong—after a moment, she just shakes her head and turns her attention back to the TV. It’s anybody’s guess whether the stress she’s been under makes her more strict or less on any given day; tonight, it seems, she’s on the side of lenience.</p><p>Wondering if a bit of that grace might extend to herself, Robin glances down at her bowl full of rejects and reaches for that Milky Way Midnight, unwrapping it himself and offering it to her. “If they get three each tonight, I think we both get at <em>least</em> six, yeah?”</p><p>Regina snorts and rolls her eyes, but she takes the candy, muttering something about how Robin is <em>such a child</em>, before popping it into her mouth and chewing slowly. He’s not sure he’s ever seen someone take so long to chew their way through a bite size candy, but he has a feeling she won’t be treating herself to another tonight so he doesn’t needle her for savoring this one. He grabs another Tootsie Roll instead.</p><p>It’s not long before both boys have their candies dutifully sorted and have chosen their three pieces each—a Reese’s pumpkin, a Snickers (Robin’s pretty sure it’s the one that Roland had already started opening), and a Tootsie Pop for Henry (the latter of which Robin thinks is a brilliant move, as it has him well supplied with a sweet for as long as it takes to work the lolly away), and Skittles, Skittles, and Skittles for Roland. He asks for a bowl to dump them all in, and then picks out each and every lemon candy, dropping them in Robin’s palm before curling up on the sofa with his bowl of sweets and bringing them to his mouth one-by-one, zombie-like, as he grows more and more engrossed with the adventures of Jack and Zero and Oogie Boogie.</p><p>It doesn’t escape Robin’s notice that the boy’s eyelids are already beginning to droop.</p><p>Regina doesn’t take any more candy from the bowl, but she does steal several of the lemon Skittles from Robin’s hand as they watch the movie—something he’s grateful for, because he’d just as soon dump the whole palmful into the reject bowl.</p><p>The whole scene is very homey, he thinks. Kids munching on their sweets, a movie on the tv, him and Regina curled up on the sofa, dog snoozing at their feet. A little bubble of normalcy in the chaos their lives have become lately. It’s what he’d hoped tonight would be, for all of them, and it both settles something in his chest and makes it ache fiercely at the knowledge that nights like this can’t be the norm for them.</p><p>He’d kill for normal right now (knows exactly who he’d have to kill for it, too, and he pushes down the automatic bubble of burning anger at the thought of that absolute tosspot in favor of pressing a kiss to the top of Regina’s head). Tonight has been good, and he doesn’t want to spoil it with thoughts of Sidney fucking Glass.</p><p>He breathes in the scent of her shampoo instead—the familiar floral warmth of lavender mixed with just a hint of what he can only describe as cool night air.</p><p>He must linger just a few seconds too long to be casual, because Regina tips her head up to look at him, brow furrowed. The only thing he wants less than thoughts of Sidney is for <em>her</em> to have thoughts of Sidney, so he whispers, “You look good tonight,” and makes her smile slyly instead.</p><p>Let her think he was lingering over her because he wants her, not because he worries over her or because he wants to commit a bit of casual Halloween homicide on her behalf.</p><p>“You, too,” she tells him and he snorts, mutters, <em>Hardly.</em> He’d thrown it all together last minute, layering an open dress shirt and undone tie over his Superman t-shirt and picking up a cheap pair of reading glasses at the pharmacy. He’d been a low-rent Clark Kent but it had been enough to escort the boys around the neighborhood. It must have passed muster for Regina, though, because she’s shaking her head and telling him, “Blue always brings out your eyes.”</p><p>She glances toward Henry for a second, judging how engrossed he is in the movie, before dropping her voice to breathe, “And the glasses were sexy.”</p><p>“Is that so?” he smirks, pleased when she winks saucily (or tries to anyway), teeth sinking into her lower lip. He ducks his head even closer to hers, so he can murmur into her ear that maybe he’ll bring them over next weekend and she can put on one of those tight skirts and play his Lois Lane.</p><p>Robin feels Regina laugh more than hears it, her head shaking—until she turns it toward his and leaves them nearly nose-to-nose while she whispers, “Maybe we could sleep over tonight.”</p><p>“You don’t want to spend the night at home?”</p><p>“Not really,” she confesses, glancing beyond him and adding, “I want to spend it with you—and Roland’s already asleep.”</p><p>Robin cranes his head around to discover she’s right—Roland is sound asleep on the other end of the sofa, mouth hanging open, one hand still in his half-empty bowl of Skittles. Well. That’s that decided, then.</p><p>“We can put them down in John’s room,” he suggests, keeping his voice pitched low in the hope that Henry won’t overhear them making sleeping arrangements to accommodate some <em>grown-up time</em>. “He’s spending the night with his banshee.”</p><p>Regina snorts a laugh and shakes her head, muttering something about not seeing the appeal. Robin stops short of saying it’s because the woman puts out, popping the last few lemon Skittles into his mouth instead. As he does, Regina stretches one leg out to give Henry a poke, asking once she has his attention, “You want to crash here tonight? I can make M&amp;M pancakes in the morning, if you’re willing to part with a few.”</p><p>She hadn’t needed to sweeten the deal—Henry was already nodding—but at the offer of candy-filled pancakes, he perks up even more, head bobbing vigorously.</p><p>He makes it to the end of the movie, but just barely, blinking heavily as he and his mum set to returning his and Roland’s candies to their respective buckets so they can be stashed away safely out of the dog’s reach overnight. While they do, Robin lifts Roland gingerly and carries him up the stairs to the master bedroom, glad that John has at least changed the sheets recently.</p><p>Ten minutes later, both boys and dog are tucked into John’s bed, and Robin is closing his own bedroom door, flipping the lock and taking in the very welcome site of smudged cat Regina sitting on the foot of his bed. She’s put the ears back on, and he finds it adorably cheeky.</p><p>“He asked me if we were having them both sleep in John’s bed so we could kiss,” she informs him, with a look of warring amusement and embarrassment.</p><p>Robin just laughs. “And you said?”</p><p>“I told him yes and that I didn’t think he got to make the cooties face over it after he spent all summer trying to convince me I should be dating you,” she answers as Robin closes the space between them and leans in to steal a smooch, one hand rising to cup the back of her neck as he does. Their lips stay close as she adds, “But now I wish I’d lied, because my son knows we’re in here making out, and that's… uncomfortable.”</p><p>“We’re not making out yet,” he reasons—one smooch doesn’t qualify—“And your son will be asleep in five minutes if he’s not out already.”</p><p>“Well, then, you have five minutes to put those glasses back on…” she teases, her nose scrunching in a way that makes her drawn-on whiskers twitch.</p><p>Robin grins, and steals another kiss, and dutifully fetches them from the dresser.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>